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How to write a compelling autobiography: Steps, tips, and examples
Author:
Dallas Hardwick
Jul 10, 2024
10 min
Table of contents
How to write an autobiography
Autobiographies may seem like boring literary pieces but there are great lessons to learn from them. They’re great to pick up if you’re looking for education, inspiration, a different perspective, or entertainment.
Although they are stories of real people, they can be just as exciting as your favorite thriller books, making your heart pound from anticipating what happens next. Like self-help books, they provide valuable lessons and offer wisdom you can apply in your life.
So if you are interested in writing your autobiography, go for it!
Writing an autobiography is an excellent opportunity to share your experiences with other people. It’s also a great way to reflect on your life and take a closer look at how you’ve grown as a person.
It can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience that fulfills not only you but also your audience. If done right, you can craft an autobiography that brings your story to life in a way that resonates with your readers.
What is an autobiography?
What is autobiography? Broadly speaking, it is a book or an essay that details a person's entire life, which is the author, as they write it. It’s different from a biography, which is written about another person’s life.
The autobiography genre is broad and includes many subgenres. Some of these include:
Intellectual
This is an autobiography that focuses on the author's intellectual side. It often discusses their educational evolution, which is why it’s typically written by people who’ve had a lot of schooling.
Thematic
Thematic autobiographies are written from the perspective of a specific theme. Common themes include family, love, loss, or mental health issues like depression. It could be a great choice for your autobiography if there is a specific theme you see in your life.
Religious or spiritual
This subgenre is all about the spiritual or religious enlightenment of the author. This is typically written by people who gravitate to a spiritual life or have found God. They share about their spiritual journey and how God impacts their life.
Fictional
This autobiography mixes the author’s real life with some fictional elements. There are no rules about how much the book is fictional, but authors often embellish certain parts of real events. Remember that you must never claim it is a true autobiography.
Autobiography vs. memoir
The difference between an autobiography and a memoir is that the latter is a subgenre of autobiography. Both tell the author's story, but a memoir is written based on a certain theme—it’s the thematic autobiography we mentioned before.
Autobiographies capture the entire life story of the writer. It’s also chronological while memoirs can be written in such a way they move back and forth through time. In a way, a memoir is merely a chapter in an autobiography.
What details should be included in an autobiography? Here are some of them:
- Basic information – birth details (time, place, and date of birth) and family background
- Early life – childhood memories and education
- Significant events – milestones like graduations, marriages, career achievements, and births of children, as well as turning points in life
- Relationships – family life and influential people like friends and mentors
- Career and achievements – professional journey and awards and recognitions
- Life lessons and reflections
- Personal anecdotes
These details help you fill in the blanks of what to write in your autobiography. But it’s not so easy like that, which is why we’re here to teach you how you can start your book.
How to start an autobiography?
Start writing your autobiography with help from the steps below:
Pick a type and scope
You don’t have to include every little detail of your life in your autobiography. There’s no reason to include minuscule information like what you ate or who you met on a random Tuesday. But what should you include then?
First, decide on the type of autobiography you’ll be writing. Once you’ve picked a type, you’ll also be able to determine the scope. Is it a thematic type focusing on your marriage? That should narrow things down, and you’ll have fewer things to cover.
It’s a good idea to write a personal statement – just a short one – on why you’re writing an autobiography. It’s an excellent tip that helps you stay focused on the theme throughout the writing process.
Research and create an outline
Next, start researching and creating an outline of the events you want to include in your book. An outline is especially important as it will help provide the writing process with direction, clarity, and precision.
Once you’ve got a vague idea of what to write, you can start researching, which usually means digging into your family history. It’s time to get the yearbooks out of the boxes and open up the photo albums.
This also usually involves talking with your parents, siblings, other family members, and friends about things they remember about you. This is crucial because relying on your imperfect memory is not ideal. Talking with others also helps provide multiple perspectives on the event you’re writing.
The research part of the writing process is time-consuming but essential, so make sure to be diligent about it. Either write down everything you find, or record it for easy referencing later. You can start outlining all the research you’ve done.
Also, while you’re at it, ask permission for the people involved in your story if it’s okay to use their real names. This is courtesy as it involves their privacy. It’s not illegal and unlikely to cause you to be sued unless you write untruthful or slanderous things in your book.
When outlining, don’t forget to identify these as well:
Main characters
Who are important people to be included in your autobiography? Identify their part in the story, how they fit, and how long they remain.
Important life events
Don’t forget to list the life events to be included in your auto biography. Make sure that they are listed chronologically along with associated dates as well.
Write a story that entertains
Although autobiographies are written chronologically, it doesn’t mean you can’t add a hook to keep your readers engaged. As such, make sure to write your story in a way that entertains your audience – not dry like an academic paper. The best tip here is to apply fictional elements like characters, plot, settings, and conflict and use descriptive words.
Write the first draft
The next step is to write your first draft. Now, since this is the first draft, it won’t be perfect. It will be messy and have lots of mistakes. This is not a problem, as the first draft’s point is for you to be able to write down your ideas on paper.
With that said, here are some things that happen when writing the first, as well as pointers to keep in mind:
The POV
The first-person point of view is likely the format you’ll use for an autobiography since you are writing. This POV helps make writing the stories you want to tell come more naturally. Since it is a first-person POV, you’ll likely write “I” repeatedly. Make sure to vary your sentences so the “I” sentences don’t get old.
Expansion of certain events
You’ve made a list of the life events included in your book. Now, look into which life events need more details and narrative. Choose impactful events and expand them by adding some elements of fiction, like drama and emotion. This will make the book more interesting and help connect your story to the readers.
Word Goal
Every author has different writing processes, but make sure you have a word goal to commit to, whether for a day or a week. Keep it attainable and stick to it so that you can finish your writing on time.
Mistakes and errors
As we said, the first draft is imperfect, so don’t worry about making mistakes. Accept that there will be many errors, and just focus on writing down your ideas. You’ll go back later and fix those mistakes anyway.
Edit and rewrite the first draft
Are you done with the first draft? Well, don’t get into editing right away. Let it sit for a few weeks. This way, you can get away from what you wrote and look at it with fresh but critical eyes when you finally edit it. You can make changes and re-work your autobiography until you’re ready to have a professional editor check it.
Have it edited by a professional
It’s a good idea to hire an editor. Sure, you can ask family and friends to check it for you, but professional editors are preferable for autobiographies. They’re familiar with it and can check your book more critically. The unbiased feedback of an experienced editor can greatly help ensure the success of your book.
Publish it
You’re in the last step now, which is to publish your autobiography. This is one of the most fun parts of writing an autobiography even if you’re not looking to become a best-seller. Remember that getting a book deal will be hard if you’re not a celebrity or somewhat famous already. In that case, you can always self-publish.
Autobiography examples
One of the best ways to learn how to write an autobiography essay or an autobiography book is by reading their examples. Reading to write helps you discover strategies and techniques for writing that can supplement your skills.
Read a lot of autobiographies, and you’ll get an idea which direction you want your autobiography to go in and how you want it to be structured. Reading can also help you develop your tone of voice, style, and which writing techniques to use.
These are things that are great to have in your writing arsenal. As such, here is a list of excellent autobiography examples and reading materials.
-Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
-The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
-Agatha Christie: An Autobiography by Agatha Christie
-Autobiography of Mark Twain by Mark Twain
-The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
-I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai
-Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
-The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
-The Story of My Experiments with Truth by Mahatma Gandhi
Check them out to get a feel of how you want to write your autobiography.
Best autobiographies of all time
What is the best autobiography of all time? That’s a hard question to answer because there are thousands of amazing autobiographies to read. But if you ask Ranker.com, the number one autobiography of all time is The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.
We’re sure you’ve heard about this book before, which details the writings of Anne Frank when she and her family were hiding during the Nazi occupation. Frank died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp but her diary was retrieved and given to her father.
Deciding to publish the diary, it has since been published in over 60 different languages. It’s widely popular and critically acclaimed, having been adapted as a movie as well. The Diary of a Young Girl is also included in various lists of top books.
You can also check the above list for other autobiographies known as the best of all time.
Conclusion
Writing an Autobiography with WriterEssay.com
Writing an autobiography is not easy, even for a writer yourself. It is a rewarding endeavor, but creating a successful autobiography takes time, effort, research, and skill. Organizing your thoughts and making sense of how to write your life story into a book everyone will read is no doubt challenging.
The good news is that WriterEssay can help you. We’re a well-known essay-writing company and work with professional independent contractors who can craft your autobiography. We’ll help you create a highly unique literary expression written from scratch but made to bring your story to life.
We can help you write your autobiography, starting with an autobiography essay. We also work on homework, research papers, theses, and dissertations. Visit WriterEssay.com today to take advantage of effortless writing assistance. Contact us today!
